Culture
NYC Schools Chief Confirms Excellence Not Actually On The Agenda This Year
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
NEW YORK, NY: The New York City Department of Education has officially kicked off the 2025 back-to-school season by distributing a 47-page strategic priorities document to every principal in the five boroughs, and education analysts who read it cover to cover confirm that teaching children things is not mentioned until page 31, in a subordinate clause.
Superintendent Zohran Mamdani, who took over city leadership earlier this year on a platform of bold transformation, unveiled the framework at a press conference Thursday in which he used the phrase 'reimagining the ecosystem' eleven times and the word 'reading' zero times.
The document, titled 'Pathways to Holistic Community Engagement and Transformative Belonging: A Vision for the Children We Deserve and the City They Will Co-Create,' runs to 47 pages, contains 12 original illustrations, and devotes its first three chapters entirely to the philosophical distinction between 'schooling' and 'learning spaces.'
Academic performance, standardized test scores, and literacy rates are addressed in a single paragraph on page 38 under a section called 'Additional Considerations,' which also includes parking validation for parent-teacher nights and the city's ongoing review of water fountain nozzle heights.
The DOE did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokesperson provided a written statement reading: 'The Department remains deeply committed to centering the full humanity of every learner within a framework of equitable access to transformative educational adjacencies.' The statement did not define 'educational adjacencies.'
Parents at PS 87 on the Upper West Side had questions.
'I just want my son to learn long division,' said Tanya Krebs, 41, whose third-grader Marcus finished last year unable to read an analog clock. 'I was handed a pamphlet about restorative circles. I don't know what that is. I asked. They gave me a second pamphlet.'
The second pamphlet was also about restorative circles.
New York City public school students rank 27th among the nation's 30 largest districts in fourth-grade math proficiency, a fact the DOE's new framework acknowledges by not mentioning it. Roughly one in three city high school graduates who enroll in CUNY requires remedial coursework before they can take a class that counts toward a degree. The framework addresses this by including a QR code on page 44 that links to a Spotify playlist described as 'centering music for staff wellness.'
The playlist is seven hours long. It opens with a 22-minute ambient drone track.
Education reporters who covered the launch noted that Mamdani's presentation included a 14-slide section on 'narrative justice in the built environment,' which turned out to mean putting more mirrors in hallways so students could see themselves reflected in school architecture. Three slides were devoted to mirror placement. None were devoted to algebra.
The DOE's budget for the coming year allocates 340 million dollars to 'community partnership initiatives' and 'belonging infrastructure,' which the framework defines, on page 19, as 'the physical and psychic conditions necessary for students to feel seen before they are asked to produce.' The budget for textbooks decreased by 8 percent.
Critics including the city's Independent Budget Office and a coalition of principals from the Bronx and Brooklyn have argued for years that the DOE has its priorities on clear and consistent display, and that the public should simply believe what it sees. The DOE's consistent priority, they say, is the DOE.
'They're not failing at teaching,' said former deputy schools chancellor Raymond Cho, who left the department in 2023. 'They're succeeding at something else entirely. Once you accept that, the documents make complete sense.'
Marcus Krebs, age eight, spent the first day of school in a workshop called 'Who Am I In This Space.' He made a collage.
He cannot yet tell time.
The story we are making fun of: https://nypost.com/2026/09/10/opinion/back-to-school-in-mamdanis-nyc-means-back-to-the-same-old-failure/